TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — Some Texas women are asking a Travis County court to put the state’s new abortion law on hold.
This comes at the same time as reports show that infant deaths are on the rise following restrictive abortion bans, which has some Texas women arguing that abortion restrictions are doing more harm than good.
With an unviable pregnancy, one woman told the court she went to another state to get an abortion and not be forced to carry to term, in which survival of a child with anencephaly pregnancy could come down to just seconds and her life could be threatened.
“I felt like my pregnancy was not my own, that it belongs to the state,” she said.
And post Texas' abortion bans, there appears to be a trend about the possible effects.
According to a CNN report, around 2,200 infants died in Texas in 2022. That’s an increase of 227 deaths over the previous year, according to a preliminary infant mortality data report from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth defects rose by 21.6%.
The sharp increase in infant deaths reversed a nearly decade-long decline. Between 2014 and 2021, infant deaths had fallen by nearly 15%.
In 2021, Texas banned abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy.
Last year, a trigger law in Texas banned all abortions other than to save the life of the mother after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.